The Pentagon Marches Off to Climate War
The war in Ukraine is draining U.S. arms stockpiles while geopolitical risks grow. Yet the Biden Administration is worried about—you can’t make this up—the climate impact of U.S. weapons and wants to impose costly green mandates on federal contractors.
A little-noticed rule-making proposed by the Department of Defense, NASA and the General Services Administration last month would require federal contractors to disclose and reduce their CO2 emissions as well as climate financial risks. The rule would cover 5,766 contractors that have received at least $7.5 million from the feds in the prior year.
Smaller contractors would have to publicly report their so-called Scope 1 and 2 emissions—i.e., those they generate at their facilities and from the electricity and heating they use. Firms with larger contracts would also have to tabulate their upstream and downstream Scope 3 emissions, including those from customers, suppliers and products used in the field.
For example, weapons manufacturers would have to quantify and disclose the amount of CO2 generated from their own facilities; manufacturers that produce steel, computer chips and motors used in their weapons; propellants and fuel; and even munition storage areas. It’s unclear if CO2 emissions will influence procurement decisions.
Large contractors would also have to publish an annual climate disclosure and develop “science-based targets” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in alignment with the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement. That means contractors will have to aim to zero out emissions and possibly require their contractors to do so.
Will Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies have to redesign weapons systems and aircraft to be powered by lithium-ion batteries? China mines and processes the critical minerals used in batteries and other green technologies that will be required to meet these “science-based targets.”
The proposed rule would also apply to non-defense contractors, including pharmaceutical, shipping and tech companies, though it curiously exempts universities, nonprofit research institutions and state and local governments. These exemptions are a concession that the rule imposes costly burdens.
But the very point of the rule is to force CO2 emissions reductions across the private economy by leveraging $650 billion in annual federal contracts. By covering Scope 3 emissions, the rule would sweep in tens of thousands of non-federal contractors, including many small businesses.
“Public procurement can shift markets, drive innovation, and be a catalyst for adoption of new norms and global standards,” the rule-making says. The climate conditions on contractors “will give visibility to major annual sources of GHG emissions and climate risks throughout the Federal supply chain and could, in turn, provide insights into the entire U.S. economy.”
In other words, this is a back door for the Administration to force businesses across the economy to report and reduce their CO2 emissions. It goes even further than the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed rule requiring publicly traded companies to report Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions.
The rule-making claims that federal contractors will benefit from climate mandates by “increasing senior management attention and funding for investing in GHG reduction projects.” Great. As the U.S. military faces strained budgets and growing threats, climate will be a costly new priority in national defense. The People’s Liberation Army must be dumbfounded by its good luck.
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Vanguard quits climate alliance in blow to net zero project
Vanguard is pulling out of the main financial alliance on tackling climate change at a time when Republicans in the US have stepped up their attacks on financial institutions that they say are hostile to fossil fuels.
With $7.1tn under management and more than 30mn customers as of October 31, Vanguard is the second-largest global money manager after BlackRock. The group said on Wednesday that it was resigning from the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, whose members have committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Vanguard, which mainly manages passive funds that track market indices, said the alliance’s full-throated commitment to fighting climate change had resulted “in confusion about the views of individual investment firms”.
“We have decided to withdraw from NZAM so that we can provide the clarity our investors desire about the role of index funds and about how we think about material risks, including climate-related risks — and to make clear that Vanguard speaks independently on matters of importance to our investors,” the Pennsylvania-based company said in a statement.
NZAM was founded in December 2020 and had 291 members managing $66tn in assets as of November. Last year NZAM joined an umbrella climate finance organisation, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (Gfanz) upon its launch last year under Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor. Vanguard will exit both groups.
In a statement, NZAM said Vanguard’s decision was regrettable.
“It is unfortunate that political pressure is impacting this crucial economic imperative and attempting to block companies from effectively managing risks,” said Kirsten Snow Spalding of Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental groups and also a founding partner of NZAM.
Most of the largest global asset managers belong to NZAM, including BlackRock, State Street, JPMorgan Asset Management and Legal & General. Notable holdouts include Fidelity Investments and Pimco, both based in the US.
Vanguard said the move had been in the works for several months. It will continue to offer products that use environmental, social and governance investing factors and net zero products to investors who want them. Vanguard will also still ask the companies it invests in how they plan to address climate risks.
Last month, a group of Republican attorneys-general asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission not to renew Vanguard’s authorisation to buy shares in US utilities. They cited its NZAM membership as evidence that it was trying to influence corporate policy rather than being a passive investor.
That move is part of a larger attack by Republicans on ESG investing. Several Republican states have pulled cash management and other investment accounts from BlackRock, which has under founder Larry Fink been outspoken about the need to take into account climate change in investing. Texas comptroller Glenn Hegar said NZAM membership was one of the factors he used to compile a list of organisations he accused of “boycotting” fossil fuels.
Republican state attorneys-general have also demanded that Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo turn over information about their involvement in the banking arm of Gfanz.
Environmental groups accused Vanguard of duplicity after its announcement.
“Vanguard has never been serious about mitigating climate risk,” said Jessye Waxman, an official with the Sierra Club’s fossil-free finance campaign. For Vanguard, “joining NZAM was just an exercise in greenwashing”.
At least two pension funds, Cbus Super and Bundespensionskasse, have left the asset owner section of Gfanz, while investment consultancy Meketa has left another section. Several Wall Street banks including JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America threatened to pull out over the summer because they were concerned that they could be sued over increasingly stringent decarbonisation commitments.
Gfanz responded by weakening its alignment with UN climate goals that called for members to roughly halve the emissions they are responsible for by 2030.
https://www.ft.com/content/48c1793c-3e31-4ab4-ab02-fd5e94b64f6b
***********************************************************Do Some Climate Alarmists Wish Us All Dead?
What is the end-game of some extremists who believe in the threat of catastrophic, man-made climate change? The end of humanity.
In contrast, the founders of America operated out of a Judeo-Christian framework. The Bible was by-far the most widely read and studied book during America’s founding.
The framers declared that it is self-evident that we have been created equal and have been endowed by our Creator with certain key rights---first listed amongst them is the right-to-life.
But some of today’s climate alarmists want to see a global change to pull the plug on that right---not just for our country, but basically for humankind. And they certainly want to put the kibosh on the Biblical command to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with humans.
Why do some climate alarmists essentially wish us all dead? Because they think people are bad for the earth. They don’t believe in God. They claim to believe in science. But what is the evidence that people are supposedly bad for the earth
The Atlantic recently had an article (January/February 2023 issue), focusing on this idea that some experts today are promoting human extinction, for the sake of the planet.
They write: “From Silicon Valley boardrooms to rural communes to academic philosophy departments, a seemingly inconceivable idea is being seriously discussed: that the end of humanity’s reign on Earth is imminent, and that we should welcome it…. It is a rejection of humanity’s traditional role as Earth’s protagonist, the most important being in creation.” [emphasis added]
They call this view “transhumanism”---that we should get beyond humanity, and we should engage in “drastic forms of self-elimination.”
As noted, this contrasts sharply with the Biblical command that humanity should be fruitful and multiply. Argue the transhumanist “experts” quoted in The Atlantic: “But if being fruitful and multiplying starts to be seen as itself a form of killing, because it deprives future generations and other species of irreplaceable resources, then the flourishing of humanity can no longer be seen as simply good.”
The New York Times features an article on a 75-year old man who promotes a similar message: “Earth Now Has 8 Billion Humans. This Man Wishes There Were None.”
They write: “For the sake of the planet, Les Knight, the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction movement, has spent decades pushing one message: ‘May we live long and die out.’”
Knight often spreads the message, “Thank you for not breeding.”
They add, “Mr. Knight is among those who believe that overpopulation is a main factor in the climate crisis.” The article notes that “a 2020 poll found that one in four Americans who had not had children cited climate change as a reason.”
Ideas have consequences. What begins as a discussion of hypotheticals in the faculty lounge may eventually become policy somewhere. These are worldviews in conflict.
I remember years ago, one Christian speaker made this observation:
-In the 18th century, the Bible was killed. (Higher critics beginning in Germany attacked the Scriptures and postulated that they couldn’t be trusted.)
-In the 19th century, God was killed. (Darwinism supposedly eliminated the need for the “God hypothesis.”)
-In the 20th century, Man was killed. (Nazi Germany’s Holocaust and the Communists’ murder of some 100 million persons are two prominent examples.) And now some of these climate alarmists are arguing that even more human beings should willingly die out…for the sake of the planet.
I reached out to author Wesley J. Smith, the Chair of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Human Exceptionalism, for a comment on this idea. He told me, “The Human Extinction Movement is a form of nature worship, expressing the belief that the world will be pristine without us. But why will that matter? No one will be around capable of appreciating nature’s wonder.”
I also asked for a reply from Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, the president of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, who is a major critic of the unproven hypothesis of man-made, catastrophic climate change.
Beisner noted, “The proposal is absurdity in the extreme. Even the scenarios for the future in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s scientific reports, exaggerated as they are, don’t depict human-induced global warming as an existential threat or even a great crisis. Such claims come only from the UN’s and various nations’ political leaders, environmental activists, and the mainstream media.”
And he added, “The hope for human extinction is nothing more than anti-human. Christians, who recognize that people are the image of God, will recognize it as attacking God in effigy."
Beginning with a dubious premise, the alarmists have reached a dubious conclusion. This relatively new push for no more humans reminds me of the verse in the Bible where God’s wisdom says, “All who hate me love death.”
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The coming crash of the climate cult
Viv Forbes, writing from Australia
The Climate Cult worships two green idols – electric vehicles and wind-solar energy. This is part of a futile UN scheme promoting ‘Net Zero Emissions’ which aims to cool the climate of the world by waging war on CO2 plant food.
Green worship is the state religion of all Western nations. It is promoted by billionaires with other agendas, and endlessly repeated by the UN, the bureaucracy, all government media, state education, and most big business leaders.
The promotion of electric cars and trucks will cause a great increase in the demand for electricity to replace diesel, petrol, and gas.
We live beside a major highway connecting Ipswich and Boonah in Queensland and we can hear the roar of the traffic.
The road is quiet at night, but as day dawns, the real workers start moving – big diesel trucks off to pick up the day’s loads of gravel, machinery, cattle, tanks, pipes, hay, timber, bricks, and concrete. Then comes the traffic that sustains urban life – meat vans, milk tankers, and refrigerated trucks of produce to fill supermarket shelves every day. Around sunrise come the commuters heading for city jobs, and the city’s electric trains, lifts, and escalators start to run. Then kids are delivered to school and sirens announce the occasional passing of ambulances, fire engines, and police bikes and cars. Finally, the tree-change bureaucrats cruise past in their electric cars heading for their leisurely staggered starts. By 9 am the traffic falls off.
To achieve Net Zero nirvana, all of this early morning traffic rush must be battery-powered. Untold thousands of batteries will need to be fully charged overnight – well before the vast paddocks of Chinese solar panels can deliver one amp of green electricity.
Listen here to Australia’s new Prime Minister during the recent election campaign explaining how roof-top solar will charge all those Tesla batteries overnight…
Australia’s reliable coal/gas power stations could charge batteries overnight, while city demand for electricity is lower, but the green religion demands closure and demolition of anything using hydro-carbons. But Green engineers have the solution – intermittent wind power plus big batteries will re-charge millions of vehicle batteries before dawn.
But what keeps trains, lifts, hospitals, and refrigerators going if we have a still night followed by another cloudy day? More batteries or Snowy 9 Pumped Hydro? And if the still cloudy weather continues, what will re-charge the Big Batteries and re-pump the hydros? And will Greens apply the same conservation standards and delaying tactics to wind, solar, hydro, and power line construction that they now apply to coal mines?
The Queensland Premier has a $62 billion green plan to close all coal power stations, cover the countryside with wind/solar clutter, plan whole cities of battery charging stations, build the ‘world’s biggest’ pumped-hydro batteries (net CONSUMERS of electricity) and become a world leader in ‘green hydrogen’ (huge CONSUMERS of electricity and water). Soon after the last coal power plant is demolished, in a snap of still, cold, cloudy weather the lights will go out, electric trains will stop, and battery-powered food deliveries to the cities will falter. There will be uproar in Parliaments, and all Green/Teal/ALP governments will fall. The ABC will blame ‘climate change’.
Energy Realists will take over. They will immediately place orders for dozens of modular nuclear power plants.
But this energy reality will come too late. Long lines of city dwellers with bicycles, wheel-barrows, and old diesel utes will flee from the hungry cities.
Some of these power refugees may get jobs harvesting potatoes and onions with digging forks, milking cows by hand, or plucking and cleaning chooks.
Re-powering and re-building will take decades.
All this for zero climate benefits – the world has passed the peak of this interglacial and the next long glacial cycle is edging closer.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/12/the-coming-crash-of-the-climate-cult/
***************************************My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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